Colorado Trail trip BUSTED

A rather large unexpected (by us) Pacific storm settled onto Summit County pounding the Ten Mile Range for 36hrs with heavy rains and low clouds making a safe passage over peaks 8-9 all but impossible. After spending a wet night on the mountain we decided to save our adventure for another day. Not wanting to attract more lightning than we already experienced hence no radio contacts were attempted.

On the trail again! ...Colorado Trail that is

My good friend John(NØHJ) and I will be on the CT again logging some more miles towards Durango. Segment 7 starts in between Breckenridge and Frisco. (for more CT info). We''ll finish up near Leadville. We plan to be out for 4-1/2days. Rooster and Peanut are staying home to watch over their barn this time and it's just the old goat going this time. So probably no video but lots of still pics instead! We'll both have our ham gear ATS3A rigs along so listen for us on the usual 20/30m QRP freqs in early AM & late PM.

FD'08 on 2-Scoops of Grain!

Field Day 2008 via QRP, Goats and Solar power was PRICELESS!

Although Es openings on 6m were not abundant if at all at least HF performed pretty darn good considering a SF of only 66! Location was our usual favorite spot a top Mt Herman at 9054' ASL with 1500' shear drop off looking East. Weather was a perfect 70F and sunny with a light shower on Saturday PM.

Maybe it was my location and/or antenna but I felt like I was running QRO as I could easily get through on the first or more often the second call on CW ...most of the time. But SSB was a different story and required more skill, timing and strategy. Calling loud stations or stations that were going unanswered or in the clear. 20m was the most productive and 40m late PM was rolling thunder with lots of big signals.

Goats did their part of getting our <100lbs of FD/camping gear to the mountain top but were very unimpressed with the FD activities and napped most of the weekend. Between the rain, wind/tarps, camping chores and goat sitting I only made 150 QSOs (120-CW and 30-SSB) but it still made for a unforgettably FUN FD! N0TU (1B)Station setup: Rig: FT-817, ATS3A as backup Ant: 10-40m jumper dipole w/40' coax at 25' at edge of cliff, 2m/70cm 5el Elks beam Power source: (2) 7AH SLA batteries & solar panel Price to get there: 2-scoops of gain and Rooster & Peanut (goats) ...not bad considering the price of gas these days! In other words, PRICELESS!

YouTube video tells the rest of the story!

"Green" Goat Powered FD 2008

Under dark skies and thanks to Rooster and Peanut we hauled almost 100lbs of gear to the top of the mountain to get ready for Field Day.

More details at YouTube video.

CQ FD de NØTU & Rooster and Peanut

We'll be "hanging" out on 6m and relaxing in ham-mock shack cruising HF racking up CW QSOs while waiting for more sporadic-E openings. Please look for the 'boys' and I on 6m, 2m/70cm FD.
73, Steve, Rooster and Peanut

VHF 'test on Mt Herman

Atop Mt Herman for the VHF QSO party we made many QSOs. A few nice SE openings made 6-meters sound like 20m SSB on Sunday afternoon with signals spread from 50.125MHz on up. Including CW and some beacons. I forgot to bring my mast so I used a pine tree to support the Elk beam and it worked fine just the same. Also stretched out the 6m dipole in the same tree. Since then I've built a trail friendly version (lightweight) of WB3BEL/Harry's 3-element 6m Hexbeam. Mine weighs in at 1.5lbs using 48" driveway wands from Depot. Using my 22' fiberglass push up mast to support it and the 5element 2m/70cm Elk beam. Hope to see some SE openings during FD.

My First HF Pedestrain Mobile QSO!

Rooster and Peanut stood by patiently while the Old Goat made his first QSO/pm. Thanks to Paul-W0RW who loan me his PRC319 So I could talk to Budd W3FF and others on 20m SSB. Discovered the baseball back stops make good antenna reflectors. Also discovered that a drag wire isn't very goat proof! Looks like I need to figure on using half wave antenna system w/o a drag wire.